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McHenry County Judicial Watch — 16 Comments

The judges pension is officially named the Judges’ Retirement System of Illinois (JRS).

It is one of the five “state” pension funds along with:

– Teachers Retirement System of Illinois (TRS)

– State Employees Retirement System (SERS)

– State University Retirement System (SURS)

– General Assembly Retirement System (GARS)

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The state pension systems are massively underfunded which means, if they are to be paid in full, big future tax hikes, service cuts, or some combination thereof.

There is no meaningful proposed legislation that has a chance of passing in the current General Assembly to solve the problem.

Every legislation that has been done or is being attempted (and has a chance of passing) is chipping at the fringes of the existing problem, which is benefits were hiked while pensions were already underfunded.

That is akin to charging a credit card while carrying a balance.

It was done repeatedly since the inception of the pension systems, and escalated after the pension sentence was added to the state constitution.

Thus the most notable result of the pension sentence was hiked pension benefits which were then protected for the life of anyone employed while that benefit was in place.

That is part of the Illinois Pension Scam.

The workers and unions publicly complained the pensions were not being fully funded, while behind the scenes passed legislation that hiked pension benefits, which worsened the under funding.

Its not funny anymore that the vast majority of us people who are working in the private industries dont have retirement/pensions anymore where all these government people live a cushy life on our backs.

Even if every existing state, county, and local government employee were converted to a 401K tomorrow, we would still have a big problem paying the pensions, due to benefits accrued through today that would be paid through the lifespan of existing employees and retirees.

The state pensions on average are about 40% funded.

That means 60% of the money that should be in the investment funds, is not in the investment funds.

The taxpayers owe the 60% to the fund, which is about $120 billion dollars.

The portion of the state budget which expends the majority of state tax revenues is called the General Fund.

The state General Fund budget for an entire year is around $35 billion.

Those are rough numbers.

This is a very big taxpayer problem caused by politicians and government employees not being upfront with the taxpayers.

Without the pension benefits not many qualified lawyers would take the job.

On the other hand, is there were no pension benefits the salary would need to be considerably higher.

In the case of McHenry County judges Sullivan, Prather, Bolger, Caldwell all could have retired years ago and be collecting pension benefits, but they choose to forego pensions and keep working. Many lawyers work til they die.Same with the Supreme Court!

There are far more law school graduates than there are jobs that require a JD. Most of the judges are making more money sitting on the bench than they could make practicing law in the private sector.

The process of becoming a judge in this state is highly political, and the people who became judges generally don’t have the best academic or legal qualifications.

Even the Illinois Supreme Court is a rather unimpressive lot.

Name Party Joined Term Ends District Law school attended
Thomas L. Kilbride Democratic 2000 2020 3rd Antioch School of Law
Charles E. Freeman Democratic 1990 2020 1st John Marshall Law School
Robert R. Thomas Republican 2000 2020 2nd Loyola University Chicago School of Law
Mary Jane Theis Democratic 2010 2022 1st University of San Francisco
Rita B. Garman Republican 2001 2022 4th University of Iowa College of Law
Lloyd A. Karmeier (Chief Justice) Republican 2004 2024 5th University of Illinois College of Law
Anne M. Burke Democratic 2006 2018 1st Chicago-Kent College of Law

Only two of these law schools, Iowa and Illinois, are considered first tier, and neither of them are at the top of the first tier.

Kent and Loyola are middle of the road schools, and the other three are in the bottom tier.

The only reason that any of these people are on the bench is that they were politically connected, or in the case of Bob Thomas, a former placekicker for the Bears.